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The Bobo Doll Experiment
Bandura Hypothesised Four Theories: # Children exposed to aggressive behaviours would reproduce aggressive actions. # Children exposed to non-aggressive behaviours would reproduce non-aggressive behaviour. # Children would imitate same sex role models more that role models of the opposite sex. # Boys would be more predisposed to aggressive behaviour than girls. The study consisted of 72 children, 36 male and 36 female. The sample consisted of children attending Stanford University Nursery. The age ranged from 37 months to 69 months. The mean age of the children was 52 months. The children were divided into three groups of 24, the aggressive condition, the passive condition and the control. Each group was then sub divided into four smaller groups, which consisted of 6 boys with a male model, 6 boys with a female model, 6 girls with a male model and 6 girls with a female model. There are three independent variables in this experiment, which are, the condition the child was exposed to, the sex of the role model of the child and the sex of the child. Before the experiment commenced, the children were observed in the nursery and their aggression levels were recorded using four 5 point rating scales. The scales measured physical aggression, verbal aggression, aggression towards inanimate objects and aggressive inhibition. The study consisted of three stages: Stage 1 The children were brought into the experiment room and invited to play the game with the model. In the experiment, one corner was set up for the children, which had a small table and chair and toys, the other corner of the room was set up for the role model, which a larger table, some tinker toy set, a mallet and a 5 foot Bobo doll. For the aggressive condition, the model was instructed to play with the tinker toy set for one minute and then to be aggressive towards the Bobo doll, this include physical and verbal aggression. For the passive condition, the model was instructed to play with the tinker toy set for the duration of the experiment. The child spent 10 minutes in this room. Stage 2 The intention of the second stage was to expose the child to a mild aggression arousal. The Child was brought into a second room with more attractive toys. As soon as the child started to play with the toys, the experimenter stopped the child and told them that the toys were the experiments very best toys and that the experimenter wanted to save them for the other children. Stage 3 The child was brought into a third room. This room had a variety of different types of toys, which included crayons, plastic farm animals, dart guns and a 3 foot Bobo doll. The experimenter and the child were left in the room for 20 minutes. The child was being observed through a one way mirror. There were four main findings to this experiments. Firstly, the children in the aggressive condition were more aggressive than the passive condition. Secondly the male participants were recorded to be more aggressive than the female participants. Thirdly the male participants were more aggressive if their model was male and finally the female participants in the aggressive condition were more physically aggressive if the model was male but more verbally aggressive of the model was female. When Bandura interrupted his results, he categorised the findings into three main areas. The first area was the appropriateness of the model. The aggression of the male models was much more likely to be imitated. This may be because in the western culture, it is more acceptable for males to be aggressive than for females. The second area was relevance of model. Males were more likely to show aggressive behaviours if they had a male model. This may be due to the fact that the male participants could understand the similarities between themselves and the model. Finally Bandura concluded that the similarity between the model and the participant had an effect on the behaviour displayed by the participant. Bandura explained that gender identity of the child was a contributing factor of the aggression level.